Washington — Susan Monarez, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is being ousted from her role less than a month after the Senate confirmed her to lead the public health agency, the White House confirmed to CBS News.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced in an X post Wednesday that Monarez no longer leads the CDC. Reports on her ouster were immediately followed by a dispute between the administration and her attorneys regarding whether she had been legally fired, with lawyers for Monarez arguing she’s still in charge of the CDC and only President Trump can fire her.
It’s not clear why Monarez was removed from the job — but several other top CDC officials resigned Wednesday, often citing disagreements with the Trump administration over its vaccine policy, budgets cuts to the agency, and what one described as the “weaponization of public health.”
Prominent D.C.-based attorney Mark Zaid said in a statement that Monarez “has neither resigned nor received notification from the White House that she was fired.” He said that he and lawyer Abbe Lowell are representing Monarez.
Zaid alleged that Monarez was “targeted” because she “refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated public health experts.”
White House spokesman Kush Desai alleged in response that Monarez was terminated because she “refused to resign despite informing HHS leadership of her intent to do so.”
“As her attorney’s statement makes abundantly clear, Susan Monarez is not aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again,” Desai said in response to Zaid’s initial statement.
Hours later, Zaid and Lowell said Monarez was told of her firing Wednesday night by a “White House staffer in the personnel office.” In a statement to CBS News, they called the move “legally deficient” and argued that she remains the leader of the CDC because, as a presidential appointee, “only the president himself can fire her.”
On Monday, Monarez had to cancel an agency-wide meeting because she had been summoned to Washington, D.C., according to CDC officials.
In its X post, HHS thanked Monarez “for her dedicated service for the American people,” and said Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “has full confidence in his team” at the CDC.
At least three other senior CDC leaders have resigned from the agency, according to resignation emails obtained by CBS News.
Daniel Jernigan,…
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